


Words of Wisdom

by the_random_writer



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Advice, Affection, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 09:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10694193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: Chester has some advice for his grandson, who's struggling with the aftermath of being a POW in Afghanistan





	Words of Wisdom

Something about the boy was wrong.

Not that he'd ever been completely right. He _was_ a Grady, after all, and more of one than any of the rest of the kids, including Griffin's hellion pair. Not being completely right was almost a family obligation—one Earl and Mara's eldest boy had so far been more than happy to meet.

This wasn't the usual level of not being all there in the head. This was more than separating out his food, being uncommonly suspicious of squirrels or shooting up his mama's stove. Somewhere in his grandson's soul, something else was going on. Something bad. Something dark and mean.

The stillness was the most obvious sign. Beaumont was the twitchy type; always had been, always would be. He'd been a breech birth, so he'd come into the world feet first, squirming like an angry cat, ready to fidget, wriggle and kick before he was even ready to breathe. Stillness simply wasn't in his nature, so even when he slept, he moved. He could hold his peace if he had to (or if his mama threatened him with some horrible fate), but that didn't mean he cared to do it. Which made the way he was behaving right now a real serious cause for concern.

He'd been sitting out back for almost an hour, slouched into the garden bench, staring up at the mist-covered hills. He hadn't moved that Chester could tell, not even when that late morning squall had rattled through, briefly threatening to soak everything in its path. The boy's face was turned away, but he knew Ty wasn't really looking—just pointing his unfocused eyes at some random part of the view. 

He'd seen that look in his younger years, back during the worst months on Florida and Guadalcanal. The thousand-yard stare, they'd called it then, and shell shock in the war before. Whatever fancy name they gave it now, the meaning behind it was the same. The boy was hurting, the boy was in pain. And Chester hated seeing people in pain, especially people he loved and cherished as much as Ty.

He loved all of his grandchildren, of course (even Griffin's idiot youngest boy), but his firstborn grandchild most of all. Ty wasn't the smartest of the lot—that honour probably fell to Deacon instead—or the sassiest, thanks to the efforts of young Emma Lou, but he was definitely the bravest and the most resolute, and out of all of them, the grandchild who was most like him.

A blue jay landed on the bench, hopped a few times, cheerfully cheeped, bobbed its head then fluttered away. 

Ty didn't so much as blink.

Enough was enough. He couldn't watch this anymore. It was time for someone older and wiser to step outside and intervene.

He pushed through the screen door, paused to collect his trusty shovel, then took the three steps down to the path, wincing as his right knee twinged. Using his shovel as a cane, he picked his way across to the bench, where he lowered himself onto the vacant end. Ty made no attempt to acknowledge his presence—another very worrying sign. The boy wasn't always in a talkative mood, but he never let his manners slide, especially with older folks. Under any other circumstances, the absence of a decent greeting would earn him a solid clout on the head.

But not today. Today, Ty needed a kinder and gentler touch.

They sat for a few moments in silence, then as kindly and gently as he could, Chester said, "Don't suppose you want to tell me what's got you so troubled, son?"

Ty frowned, heaved a mournful sigh, opened his mouth as if to respond, then closed it again and shook his head.

So it was going to be like that, then. Sweet baby Jesus. The boy was just as bad as his daddy. Brave as a goddamn lion, but stubborn as a goddamn mule. Bunch of dumbasses, the lot of them. Although, he really had no right to complain, since that was also a Grady thing.

Time for a less subtle approach.

"Sonny, I ain't moving until you start talking," he warned, but with warmth and affection in his voice. "And I got nothing important to do today, so don't go thinking you can wait me out."

That earned him a tiny smile.

"I know you're just trying to help, grandpa, and I appreciate the support, but you don't need to worry," Ty murmured back, turning to briefly look him in the eyes. He looked away again as he added, "I'm fine. Really."

"Horseshit," was all Chester said. "I know you, Tyler, and right now, you're about as fine as a pox-ridden, three dollar whore."

Nothing this time, no tiny smile, not even a sigh or a brooding frown. Ty returned to his silence and stillness, but instead of staring up at the hills, he dropped his eyes to the weed-covered ground.

Chester heaved a sigh of his own. He'd probably pushed the boy too hard. And he knew full well that the harder he pushed, the deeper his mule of a grandson would burrow in.  _Back up, Grady_ , he said to himself.  _Pick another approach and try again._

"Did you do something wrong, son?" Chester asked, knowing this would surely be a source of woe for someone as duty-bound as Ty. "Are you in some kind of trouble with the law or the Corps?"

The younger Grady shook his head.

"Is it another kind of trouble, then?" 

Chester huffed as Ty gave him a puzzled frown. For people his age, this wasn't the easiest of topics to broach. 

"What I mean is, is there a… difficulty with a girl?" It wasn't the end of the world if there was. As various cousins could attest, it wouldn't be the first unplanned bun in the Grady oven.

Another negative response, plus a tiny hint of a snort.

Chester paused, thinking his next question through, then pushed on. "Something bad happened to you, didn't it, son? Out on your last tour?" Neither he, Earl or Mara knew where Ty and his buddies had been, but given the training the boy had received, and the dreadful events of nine-eleven, none of them really had to be told. They'd sent him to Afghanistan, into the heart of the war.

Ty drew in a ragged breath, not quite choking back a sob, swallowed thickly and nodded his head. "Real bad," he eventually croaked.

"Well, you already know I'm in the mood to listen, if you wanna put yourself in the mood to talk."

Another, more despondent sigh. "I can't, grandpa," Ty explained. "It was classified, so I'm not allowed."

Chester gave a sympathetic nod. He'd served in the Marines himself, he understood the importance of respecting the rules.

He switched his approach again.

"Do your Recon buddies know what happened?" he asked. "Can you talk about it with one of them?"

Ty nodded. "Yeah, they do," he whispered, rubbing the heel of one hand into the other wrist.

He'd been doing that a lot, plus humming the same tune over and over, and tapping out patterns with his fingers as well. Chester didn't want to think about what those behaviours meant. Nothing pleasant, that was for sure.

"So talk to them," he said in reply. "They're your brothers, boy, just as much as Deacon is. If they're anything like the men your daddy and I went to war with when _we_ served, they'll be worried sick, and they'll want to help."

Ty smiled. It wasn't much of a smile—tense and wan, and it didn't go all the way to his eyes—but it was something. Whatever pain the boy was feeling, whatever darkness and horror he'd faced, there was still something burning inside. That came from the Gradys, too. They were stubborn as hell, and they weren't always right in the head, but they never went down without a fight. They fought tooth and nail, mile by mile, foot by foot and inch by inch, with every ounce of strength, courage and honour they had, until there was nothing left to fight with or fight for.

"They _are_ worried," his grandson said. "And they _do_ want to help. It's just…" he trailed off, lost for words, sighing again.

Chester could guess what he'd been about to say. "You feel like you'd be giving them a burden they shouldn't have to bear."

Ty nodded mutely. "It was just me and Nick," he eventually revealed. "The others weren't tak—they weren't involved." Huffing quietly, he yanked his sleeves down over his fists and folded his arms across his chest, obviously annoyed he'd let something slip, even to someone he trusted and loved.

It wasn't much of a clue, but Chester caught it nonetheless. That's what he'd been worried about. If the boy had fallen into enemy hands, even for a few days or a week, he didn't need to talk to his grandpa or his friends; he needed some _professional_ help.

"Tyler, if I'm right in my thinking of what happened to you, you need to talk to someone. And not just anyone. Not me or your pa or your ma, or one of your Recon buddies. Someone who really knows what they're doing, with a bunch of fancy medical letters after their name. And the sooner, the better, you hear?" he urged, using his most convincing tone. "Don't you go thinking this'll heal up by itself with time. I seen this kind of thing before, back when I served in the Corps, and I know for sure this ain't gonna get better on its own. Your mind's full of darkness and pain, and rightly so, considering what it's trying to cope with. You gotta find a way to push all that darkness away, get your head and your heart back into the light. You'll get all the love and support you need from us, and I'll wager from your friends as well, but none of it'll mean shit if you don't take that first step. You understand?"

The muscles along Ty's jaw twitched. He said nothing, but nodded again.

"If you don't like the thought of talking to strangers, you could always pay a visit to that dumbass brother of yours," Chester went on, thinking of Deacon up in Morgantown, studying for another exam. "I know he's not a full doctor yet, but he's already got a whole bunch of letters after his name. Some of 'em must mean something useful."

And if anyone would want to help, it would be Deacon. Nobody on the Lord's green earth loved their nutty as squirrel shit, older brother quite as much as Deacon did. It made him think of his own younger brother Warren, dead for almost sixty years, one of the many lost on the sands of Omaha Beach.

"I thought about that, but even if I wanted to, I can't," Ty replied. "Deuce doesn't have security clearance."

Chester shrugged. He respected the need to follow the rules, but only as long as the rules made sense. "You'd only be breaking the law if someone finds out," he reminded the younger man. "Both of you boys have always been real good at keeping your mouths shut.  _Too_ good, sometimes," he tacked on, thinking back on the incident in eighty-nine involving the downhill neighbour's ducks. "Deacon's not gonna spill the beans, and not just 'cause of all that patient confidentiality stuff. So the only way anyone'll know you talked is if you tell 'em you talked."

"They'd put me in prison, gramps," Ty said in a quiet voice. "And not just for a couple of weeks. It was _that_ kind of classified."

Another shrug. "Sonny, when you enlisted in the Marines, I made a bet with your Uncle Griff that by the time you hit thirty, you'd either be in an underground cell in Leavenworth or wearing a First Lieutenant's stripes."

This time the smile was real.

"Which end did you put your money on?" Ty asked.

"Prison," Chester proudly proclaimed. "Ain't nobody got any damn use for an officer in this family, son. You're a Grady, and a Bluefield one at that, which means you work for a living. You got that?"

"Sir, yes, Sir."

Chester cast a mock scowl. "Don't you 'Sir, yes, Sir' me, dumbass. Do I look or sound like a 'Sir' to you?" he thundered, thumping his shovel into the ground.

Still smiling, Ty obediently shook his head.

The older man's tone turned solemn again. "I mean what I said, Beaumont. I know you can't tell me what happened out there, but I can see the pain of it's eating you up inside. You gotta get yourself some decent help, before it eats you all away, and there's nothing left of you but an empty shell." Chester paused, choosing his next words with care. "If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your Recon buddies. You say you don't want to give them a burden, but you're no use to them all twisted up and bent out of shape. They need to know your head's on straight, that you're not gonna take a bad turn the next time you're all out in the field, leave them exposed to enemy fire. Because whatever pain you're feeling now, it's nothing compared to the pain you'd feel standing on guard at Arlington, watching a loved one's coffin going into the ground. And I know you love those boys, Beaumont, as much as you love your actual kin."

Ty squeezed his eyes shut, obviously troubled by the thought of allowing his friends to come to harm. He drew another ragged breath, slowly let it back out, opened his eyes and smiled again. "I've already talked to a shrink a couple of times," he revealed, almost sounding shy, "but I think I'm gonna ask to see him some more, as soon as I get back to base. I promise."

Chester gave an approving nod. "That's all I need to hear, son. Your ma and pa raised you to be a man of your word, so I won't ask for anything more."

A drop of water hitting the bench made them both look to the sky. Turbulent-looking, dark grey clouds were slowly rolling in from the west.

"Looks like this morning's squall's coming back for a second round," Chester observed.

Ty wrinkled his nose. "Garden's gonna get a bit of a clean. Us too, if we don't clear out."

"That we are," Chester agreed. "So how about you get off your butt and help your old grandpa back inside?"


End file.
